Charging for ATM services

Advances in analog and digital telecommunications technology have provided us with a wide range of telecommunications networks since the invention of the analog telephony network by Bell in 1876, such as wireless and wired CATV networks, local, metropolitan, and wide area networks, and the Internet; and a range of protocols to go with these networks, such as Internet Protocol or ATM. Charging for services delivered across these networks has always been an issue of major concern to providers and users of telecommunications services. The ability to charge accurately and efficiently for a service is directly related to the potential quality, value, flexibility, and customer care available to the customer, and, equally important, provides a means of survival, growth, and profitability to the provider. ATM is becoming a significant carrier of telecommunications services because its technology can accommodate a wide variety of services such as multimedia on demand, voice services, or videoconferencing, demanded by today's rapidly changing market. While there are many schemes in use for the charging of mobile and fixed telephony, the area of Internet charging and, in particular, ATM charging is relatively uncharted to date. In this article we address the challenge of developing methods of charging for ATM services, and show solutions in the form of technical and commercial recommendations and a practical implementation of these recommendations.